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Woodruff recognized with Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award

March 21, 2013

Woodruff recognized with Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Nan Elizabeth Woodruff, professor of African American studies and modern U.S. history in the College of the Liberal Arts, is the recipient of the 2013 Howard B. Palmer Faculty Mentoring Award.

The award honors and recognizes outstanding achievement by a faculty member with at least five years of service who effectively guides junior faculty. Howard Palmer was the senior associate dean of The Graduate School from 1984 to 1991.

Woodruff is cited for advocating for and mentoring junior faculty in the Department of History and in the African American Studies Department.

“She is a welcome and enlightening ambassador to new and visiting faculty in the department and beyond it, always willing to provide advice and practical assistance,” one nominator said. “As one of the most senior and productive women on the history faculty, Nan has taken very seriously her position as a role model and mentor for other women.… In a similar vein, as a historian of race, she has a real commitment to improving the diversity of the University, going out of her way to help faculty of color feel comfortable.”

A faculty member since 1988, Woodruff received Penn State’s Rosemary Schraer Mentor Award in 1988. A nominator for the Palmer Award wrote, “What I value most about Nan’s mentorship is the way she freely shares her own personal experiences about being a junior faculty member.” The nominator continued, “From Nan, I learned that my best work is not only measured in national prizes and awards; it is also measured by something as simple as building meaningful intellectual relationships with students or helping to foster an inclusive and mutually respectful work environment with fellow faculty and staff.”